ASA Chapter Focus: Western North Carolina

[Jimbo]

Among the affiliates of Americans for Safe Access enjoying recent success in defending patient rights is the Western North Carolina chapter, ASAWNC. Chapter members testified last month before the state legislature in support of making medical use legal in North Carolina, and the director's caregiver prevailed in an important court case.
On June 25, ASAWNC members traveled across the state to the capitol in Raleigh for the North Carolina House Science & Technology committee hearing regarding NC H.R. 2405, which is a bill to study the public benefits of allowing medical marijuana in the state. Joining ASAWNC director Jean Marlowe in testifying before the committee in support of the bill was former Surgeon-General Dr. Jocelyn Elders, as well as Dr. Laura Hanson of Chapel Hill and patient Dixie Deerman, who is a Registered Nurse in Asheville.
That testimony came just two days after Steve Marlowe, Jean's caregiver, won an important ruling in state court, where he was facing state marijuana charges. The judge threw out all evidence obtained with the search warrant, ruling that the informant used by the Polk County Sheriff's Department was "not a credible witness" and that they had acted with "willful intent, or with reckless disregard for the law" in using this informant as a basis for their search warrant. As a result, all charges were dismissed later that day.
By the end of the week, the District Attorney had ordered the sheriff to return all property taken from the Marlowes, except for the marijuana. This was the third time law enforcement has been ordered to return equipment to the Marlowe home. ASAWNC made sure news media was on hand to cover the return of property.


ASA*:*July 2008 Activist Newsletter